The people who claimed they were protesting the Dakota Pipeline to save the environment have a funny way of showing it. They left behind so much garbage that the site has become a potential environmental disaster.

Clean-up crews are racing to clear acres of debris at the largest Dakota Access protest camp before the spring thaw turns the snowy, trash-covered plains into an environmental disaster area.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday that the camp, located on federal land, would be closed Feb. 22 in order to “prevent injuries and significant environmental damage in the likely event of flooding in this area” at the mouth of the Cannonball River in North Dakota.

“Without proper remediation, debris, trash, and untreated waste will wash into the Cannonball River and Lake Oahe,” the Corps said in its statement.

Those involved in the clean-up effort, led by the Standing Rock Sioux, say it could take weeks for private sanitation companies and volunteers to clear the expanse of abandoned tents, teepees, sleeping bags, blankets, canned food, supplies and just plain garbage littering the Oceti Sakowin camp.

The video report below from a local news source suggests that there are up to 250 truckloads of trash to be removed and that authorities are even searching the debris for dead bodies.

The camp inhabited by the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters once held as many as 10,000 people, although only a determined 1,000 planned to stay on through the rough North Dakota winter. As the weather begins to warm once again, though, sanitation crews are scrambling to remove six months’ worth of trash before it becomes “toxic,” NBC’s West Dakota affiliate reports.

“Standing Rock Environmental Protection Agency and Dakota Sanitation are working together to try and avert an environmental tragedy,” explained Tom Doering, the Morton County Emergency Manager.

Authorities are concerned about the possibility of other kinds of tragedies, too. Every load of trash is carefully combed by the Morton County Sheriff’s department: “We are looking for, as I said, anything illegal, anything that might be used to, I guess, harm our officers during a protest,” said Morton County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jay Gruebele. He added, “As bad as it sounds, we’re looking for people that may have died and could be wrapped up in a canvas or a tarp or tent.”

It’s like Occupy Wall Street all over again.

Why is the left taken seriously over any environmental concerns when they repeatedly leave a trail of destruction and trash in their wake?

I think it’s rather surprising that even conservative commentators are failing to note one of the most obvious stories out of this camp, and this effort.

I believe that we now have evidence that shows that ALL of this, including the “protests”, was a series of stunts organized and carried out BY the Obama administration, in order to satisfy their big enviro donors and also (they believed) to encourage the enviro movement votes to show up and vote in a big way. (bad move, that only works in California, which Trump conceded from the start)

To recap – this protest started last year, and built in anticipation of the election, getting lots of coverage from the MSM and and full sympathy from the administration, as it used this to gut the approval which a completely ordinary pipeline project had already received.

Then came the election and the protests really hyped up for a bit, combined with the administration making moves to try and tie up the project for at least two more years, with yet another “environmental impact” study. It was enough to even convince the pipeline operator that they should give up, and they were ready to.

3 weeks ago Trump was inaugurated, and quickly the need for 2 more years of “environmental study” disappeared. (Because it had already been done several times over) The Sioux said they’d Sue (heh), but that also didn’t come to pass, since they also have had their day in court several times over.

And the protesters? Just about all gone, except for a handful of sad holdovers with nothing left to do. They’ll be cleared out soon and the pipeline will be completed within a month. No more protests except by a sad few – where did they all go, and why aren’t they coming back? It seems obvious that it’s because they’re no longer being paid to go there, and no one is paying the transportation costs to ship them there. It’s common on boards like this to blame George Soros, but I think in this case it’s much, much closer to home.

I think Gina McCarthy and her EPA minions organized all of this, and I believe John Podesta used some of Hillary’s $1.2 Billion campaign chest to fund this. It carried on for a couple of months after the election, because it had been set up in anticipation of a Hillary win, and she was supposed to use this as justification for a sweeping new wave of anti-pipeline restrictions across the country. Once the plan was in place, it couldn’t be shut down overnight, even though it became pointless after November 9th.

Now the Official organizing of this is as gone as Gina McCarthy, and John Podesta doesn’t have that big pot of money to trawl for Hillary votes with anymore. And the mob of Protesters?

To paraphrase the end of “Usual Suspects” – “And just like that, Poof! They were gone.”

I am certain that a simple forensic review of the protestor’s bank accounts would:
1. possibly show Where the money came from
2. the groups paying $ violated federal law by not issuing 1099’s, W-2’s etc
3. definitely would show that the protestors had income that they did not report on their tax returns.

The IRS should go after them the same way they go after normal citizens.

I remember a few years back comparison shots of the aftermath of Tea Party events and gatherings versus those of things like occupy wall street. The Tea Party always cleaned up after itself, too the point where you couldn’t hardly tell they had been there. Why is that? Maybe because the Tea Party actually gave a damn instead of being a bunch of paid activist shills! It’s obscene that once again good responsible folks are having to clean up after another leftist astroturf protest, especially since state and county budgets (you know it’s their people doing most of the work here) don’t account in their budgets for stuff like this!

When I was a Boy Scout back in the early 60’s, one thing we were taught over and over: always leave a place looking better than the way you found it. Does anyone teach this kind of stuff any more?

So when we go RVing, I always make sure I pick up any and all trash – not that there ever is much, since RVers tend to be conscientious. When hiking, I pick up any trash I see. You’d be surprised. When others see you picking up trash, some of them almost always start doing the same. It just takes one to get the ball rolling.

So maybe they don’t teach this kind of stuff anymore, what with having to spend valuable teaching time indoctrinating our kids with progressive values. But we can certainly continue to set a good example for others.

You can set a good example, but you can’t wring the culture out of recently arrived Americans. Trashing, or not, your environment is cultural. In a third world country the roadsides, back yards, and city streets are covered with discards. Residential trash service does not exist. Cigarettes, food wraps, beverage containers, household garbage goes out the car window. They don’t even think about it or see the mess, it’s cultural and assimilation will never overcome it. The photos of the trashed-out countryside bring tears to my eyes, and I guess there were some responsible campers there, but the lack of concern by the majority, and the lack of planning by the organizers, shows how clueless and destructive they are.

There is a propaganda video circulating, apparently filmed at the Bismarck Landfill, claiming to prove that we evil Conservatives are bringing in garbage to falsely accuse the protesturds of being messy.

“The people who claimed they were protesting the Dakota Pipeline to save the environment have a funny way of showing it.”

It seems this way to us because Conservatives tend to think in terms of goals and outcomes. LIBERALS DON’T. They think in terms of their own feelings. To them, a protest is a social activity, a way of bringing people together and generating good feelings.

That the actual outcome is different from their stated purpose doesn’t even register on them. The propaganda they put out about what they do and the stuff they actually care about have nothing to do with each other.

Interestingly, a lot of Liberals are unaware of this. They think their good feelings prove the purpose has been achieved. This explains a LOT of their behavior.

The liberal media and so called environmentalists have created this false image of Native Americans (Indians) as the keepers of the land. That the Indians worship the land and consider the land Mother Earth. That the land is home to their Great Spirit. Yeah, right! Tons and tons of garbage left on what was pristine prairie being worked on by conscientious Corporate interests to better all Americans with a much needed energy supply. So much for the image of the caring American Indian! The Sioux Nation should be made to pay the cleanup costs!

Not having an industrial civilization, the native american footprint was pretty light. But the early whites never saw native american civilization in full flower, since it was mostly gone by the time they got here.

The early european settlers were amazed by how park-like and open the forests were, so easy to walk through and hunt it. They didn’t realize that the native americans had been setting regular fires in those woods for hundreds of years, to create that effect. All the undergrowth was regularly burned off and never got much of toehold because of it.

The interesting thing is that looking at our experience of fighting every fire no matter what, this may have been a much better method of forest management. When the low growth fuel is regularly burned, the large trees are unaffected and the result is a large amount of small fires, but no really big ones.

We’ve managed to get rid of almost all of the small fires, with the result that when they do come (as they always will) they are absolute monsters, like the one in Gatlinburg. Doesn’t seem like a good trade to me.